My journey to Black Tap NYC began last month, when one #foreveralone night I wondered where a girl might score a ridiculous milkshake to send her into a diabetic coma. My thoughts led me to Instagram, where I searched hashtag milkshakes and came across the most insanely crafted milkshakes I’d ever seen. Sour belts? Cotton candy? Gum drops? An entire cookie ice cream sandwich? My mind leapfrogged from, “How in the…?!” to “Get in my belly!” pretty quickly.

I took screenshots of the shakes and sent them to my equally milkshake-thirsty cousin with the caption, “I want to go to there!” Being more lazy than a pregnant sloth, my excitement waned a little when I realized I’d have to go all the way into the city… but nevertheless, there I was last Sunday morning, with 50 other gluttons, waiting on Black Tap to open up.

My cousin and I arrived about two hours before Black Tap’s 12 p.m. opening time. Three other patrons were ahead of us. As noon ticked closer, the three became six when a family of four moseyed up to the front of the line (and one person left). The family had paid someone from TaskRabbit to hold the spot. “Why the hell didn’t we think of that?” I wondered aloud, as I began to lose the feeling in my fingers and my nose started to get Roscoe from Martin-type runny.

It was now 12:06 and I was still on line — cold, tired and hungry. I’d skipped breakfast because I didn’t want to ruin my appetite, and I skipped drinking anything because I didn’t want to have to use the bathroom while in line. At that point, I’d also been up for 10 hours already. I had intentions of getting a goodnight’s rest before this little adventure, but binge-watching the latest season of House of Cards seemed like the move to make at 2 a.m., so that’s what I did. I regret nothing.

I had a milkshake in LA once that I would have waited a solid 1.5hrs for. It was at a place called Lucky Devil — which comes from the nickname that it’s founder got when he starred ina Diet Pepsi ad that stayed in rotation all through the 90s and made him enough to start a restaurant. “Pretty f*cking good shake”